The
image of Western involvement in the Balkans
following the Yugoslav civil war is one of benign
peacekeeping, an attempt to bring civilization to
the uncivilized. NATO's war against Yugoslavia is
painted as a "humanitarian" gesture.
That these images should be so widely accepted,
even among those on the left, is a tribute to the
efficacy of western media obfuscation. Forgotten
is the primary role of the West in dismembering
Yugoslavia, and creating and fueling the civil
wars. Its involvement since the 1995 Dayton peace
accord has been no less significant. The demise
of the Soviet Union has left in its wake a
unipolar world which has greatly enhanced Western
access to resources. It has also created the
opportunity for a return to the crudest forms of
imperialism. NATO's savage bombing of Yugoslavia,
the culmination of western destabilization and
intervention in the region, is only the most
visible manifestation of a larger policy to place
that nation in a dependent position.

Overturning
the Economic system

The common theme running through
Western policy is the further fragmentation of
Yugoslavia and the overturning of its economic
system. Montenegro, one of Yugoslavia's two
remaining republics, receives support and
encouragement from Western leaders, who make no
secret of their desire for its secession from
Yugoslavia. While Serbia, Yugoslavia's other
republic, continues to suffer under draconian
Western economic sanctions, which have continued
unabated in one form or another since 1992,
Montenegro has received a pledge from U.S.
Secretary of State Madeleine Albright to
"shield" it from sanctions. Already
Montenegro receives $5.9 million in aid from the
U.S., and $3.3 million from the European Union.
The Prime Minister of Montenegro, Milo
Djukanovic, declared the entire republic to be an
"offshore center," in which foreign
businesses can benefit from an income tax of only
2.5 percent. Foreign investors are also granted a
host of additional benefits. Montenegro has
embarked on a massive privatization program, in
which the majority of its state assets are to be
turned over to private investors. No doubt it is
these moves which led Albright to exclaim,
"The United States salutes Montenegro's achievements...."(1)

Privatization in Serbia is far more
limited, and many elements of socialism remain.
Consequently, both Serbia and the federal
government of Yugoslavia face unremitting Western
hostility. Reports surfaced last November of an
American plan to topple Yugoslav President
Slobodan Milosevic and his Serbian Socialist
Party-Yugoslav United Left-led coalition
government. A high-ranking DIA official disclosed
that "activation of a policy of the end of
Milosevic and his power in Yugoslavia is very
much on the table."

The plan calls for supporting
Montenegro's secession from Yugoslavia, as well
as expanded CIA and DIA contacts with the
Yugoslav right-wing opposition, with the
overthrow of the left-wing government as its
goal. "Clinton is doing this right
now," said a White
House source, "and it's beginning at a local
level."(2)
"It's a cornerstone of our policy in the
Balkans," said U.S. State Department
spokesman James Rubin, "to promote
democracy...."- a euphemism for capitalism.
Along those lines, "We are spending $15 million in the Federal
Republic of Yugoslavia, including $2 million for
independent TV."(3)
Most of the funds to the opposition are channeled
through such organizations as the National
Endowment for Democracy and the National
Democratic Institute. Significant financial
assistance to the opposition is also provided by
the European Union and George Soros' Open Society
Institute.(4)

The primary component of the Western
destabilization campaign is support for the
violent secessionist movement in the Kosovo
region of Yugoslavia. According to a report by
the Russian Federal Security Service, the CIA has
operated in Kosovo since 1995, and the number of
its operatives multiplied rapidly just prior to
the explosion of violence in early 1998. Most of
these agents act "under cover of
`humanitarian´ missions and various observer teams,"
the report stated.(5)

The military arm of the secessionist
movement is the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA),
which not only engages in military operations,
but has also assassinated several hundred
pro-Yugoslav civilians of all ethnic groups,
including Albanian. The policy of killing
civilians, KLA spokesman Jakup Krasniqi declared,
is justified because "collaborators are warned that we will
kill them if they continue to follow the wrong
path."(6)
A number of execution sites have been discovered,
and last August, when Yugoslav police captured a
KLA stronghold at Klecka, they discovered the
charred remains of 22 executed men, women, and
children, and a handcuffed, decapitated body in a
cellar. An examination of the remains showed
evidence of torture. A captured KLA soldier
confessed to executions, saying that "after
the shooting the firing squad threw the bodies
into the lime-pit,"
poured gasoline on the bodies and set them afire.
"Some of them were still alive," he
added, "since whining could be heard."(7)

A large proportion of the KLA's force
is composed of mercenaries and Kosovar Albanian
expatriates, and Krasniqi has admitted that half
of the KLA's soldiers come from abroad. Many of these
mercenaries act as training instructors.(8)
According to a Yugoslav policeman, "The way
in which [the KLA] conduct their operations,
prepare the ground for attack, or build
fortifications, confirms that they are very
well-organized and that they have very good
trainers."(9)

Many Kosovar Albanians living in
Western Europe donate three percent of their
income into bank accounts of the organization,
"Homeland Calling." The German Foreign
Ministry notes
that those unwilling to pay this "solidarity
tax" are often forced to do so.(10)

The bulk of the KLA's financing for
arms purchases derives from the drug trade. A
report in the Swedish press points out that
"it is mainly Kosovo Albanian rings that
organize heroin smuggling into the Nordic
area.... They have pushed other groups out of competition from
portions of the European market." Swedish
police report that up to 90 percent of heroin
seized in Sweden "can be linked to Kosovo
Albanian rings."(11)
Last June, a nation-wide police sweep in Italy
netted 100 drug traffickers, including members of
a Kosovar Albanian mafia. Profits from the sales
of drugs were used to purchase arms in Italy, which were
then shipped to Kosovo.(12)
A report by the German Federal Criminal Agency
states, "Ethnic Albanians are now the most
prominent group in the distribution
of heroin in Western consumer countries."(13)

Hundreds of tons of weapons have
flooded across the border from Albania into
Kosovo. Many of these arms were purchased on the
black market or looted from armories during the
July 1997 uprising in Albania, but the KLA also
receives arms through contact with Western
intelligence agencies. The German
"Monitor" television program on ARD
Television Network reported that the German
Military Counter-intelligence Service was
involved in "several illegal arms
supplies" to Albania and that "via
these channels" German military equipment
reached the KLA. In the program, a former
counter-intelligence official claimed that the arms
supplies were "ordered by the very
top." (14)
One NATO official noted, "We have seen
sophisticated weapons like the German-designed
Armbrust anti-tank
weapon being used." (15)
Austrian radio reported that a photograph of a
KLA soldier holding a Steyr automatic rifle
"caused quite a stir." The Steyr, the
report said,
"is a showpiece of Austria's military
technology" and "is considered one of
the best automatic rifles in the market by
military circles." (16)

On July 2 last year, the Albanian
press noted mysterious flights by U.S. military
cargo planes, flying into Albania without
reporting their presence. "An average of two
U.S. C-130 military aircraft have landed daily at
Gjadar," the report said, alarming civil
aviation personnel, who worry that the lack of
notification may lead to air collisions with
civil aircraft.
(17)
The New York Times reported that an officer in
the Western observer mission "was taken
aback when a powerful U.S.-made Barret sniper
rifle was brought out for display" by a KLA
soldier. "He was told the guerrillas had
more of them and additional ones would be coming
in." This rifle, a NATO officer claims, is
capable "of blowing a head off from a mile
away." (18)
Last December, a Western journalist reported that
the KLA had "acquired satellite
communications" and "smuggled in
significant amounts of anti-tank rockets,
anti-aircraft guns, shoulder-fired Stinger
anti-aircraft missiles and long-barreled sniper
rifles." He was told by a KLA deputy
commander, "We're getting more and more arms
every day." (19)

Last summer, Albanian Secret Service
director Fatos Klosi said that relations with the
CIA were "intensified in recent
months," and that "CIA
specialists" were active in Albania, including northern
Albania, a region under the control of the KLA. (20)
According to Yugoslav special units expert Stojan
Jovic, the entire Kosovo-northern Albania
operation was "being carried out by American
Green Berets," and the KLA had
"intelligence support" from NATO's
South Wing Headquarters in Naples. KLA fighters,
he said, "maintain
satellite contacts with U.S. intelligence agents
who conduct aerial surveillance...." (21)

Western news reports last summer may
have inflated the scale of refugee flight to
justify NATO intervention. Austrian journalist
Paul Flieder pointed out that such figures were
"impossible to verify," and that he
could find "no trace" of such large
numbers of refugees in northern Albania and in
Kosovo. "I got the impression that the
refugee figures are being deliberately
exaggerated to get hold of relief supplies. An
Albanian who houses a couple of refugees told me
that none of the relief supplies get through to
the refugees. Everything seems to go into arms
dealing." (22)
This year, the abrupt termination of the Paris
peace conference by Western leaders and NATO
saber-rattling merely ignited the region into
full-scale warfare, resulting in a genuine mass
refugee crisis.

Last September, the Western policy of
low-intensity conflict in the region seemed on
the point of collapse, as the KLA, forced out of
most of Kosovo, faced defeat at the hands of the
Yugoslav police and army. NATO responded by
threatening to bomb Yugoslavia. Such threats
enabled NATO to win Yugoslavia's agreement to
allow Western monitors to patrol Kosovo and NATO
spy planes permission to overly the region. While
this fell short of NATO's objectives, it
essentially got what it wanted: a Western
presence and further opportunities for meddling
in the internal affairs of Yugoslavia. Under
terms of the agreement, Yugoslav police and army
presence in the region greatly diminished, and
large areas of Kosovo fell into the hands of
secessionists - a not unintended consequence.

NATO needed a pretext or more direct
intervention, and this arrived with the alleged
massacre in the village of Racak on January 15.
Brandishing the threat of bombing Yugoslavia,
western leaders brought both parties in the
conflict to a peace conference in Rambouillet,
France, to negotiate over a U.S.-drafted peace
and autonomy plan. A high-ranking
American official admitted the plan would be
"basically imposed" upon the
negotiating parties. (23)
The attitude that a complex and difficult
conflict could be resolved rapidly through
belligerence is stunning in its arrogance.

The two negotiating teams presented a
stark contrast. The secessionist delegation
consisted solely of Albanians, with heavy
representation from the KLA. The KLA's position,
as stated by its spokesman Bardhyl Mahmuti a few
months before, was that "We will never change our
position. The independence of Kosovo is the only
solution.... We can't live together [with Serbs].
That is excluded." (24)
The composition of the Yugoslav delegation
reflected Kosovo's ethnic complexity, consisting
not only of Serbs, but also two Albanians, a
Slavic Muslim, a Turk, a Goran, a Roma, and an
Egyptian. Serbian Prime Minister Mirko Marjanovic
declared, "We want a solution that
guarantees equality for every
national community and enables everyone to be
master of his own fate," but that "we
are not going to allow foreign rule over a single
inch of Serbia." (25)

Farce
at Rambouillet

It is difficult to avoid the
conclusion that the peace negotiations were
intended to fail. Repeated requests by the
Yugoslav delegation for face-to-face talks were
rejected by Western mediators. Serbian President
Milan Milutinovich complained, "We have not
received all the documents for this conference.
It is clear...there are games being played here and we don't know
what these games are." (26)
He soon found out. During the 17 days of
negotiations at Rambouillet in February, the
Yugoslav delegation substantially accepted the
Western political proposals, but they
understandably rejected the demand for occupation
by NATO troops. On the final day, just hours
before the conclusion of the conference, Western
mediators presented a new document, containing 56
pages for the first time. (27)

The following month, when the Yugoslav
delegation arrived in Paris for the resumption of
negotiations, Western officials told them that no
discussion of the new proposal would be
permitted. Western mediators would allow
discussion only of "implementation" of
this new plan, which had never been discussed.
For weeks Western officials had begged the KLA to
sign the plan, and British Foreign Secretary
Robin Cook tipped the Western hand when he urged
the KLA, "If you don't sign up to these
texts, it is extremely difficult to see how NATO could then take
action against Belgrade." (28)
Once the KLA signed on, Western officials
immediately aborted the Paris conference.
Milutinovich denounced the Paris talks as "a
fraud, some sort of deceit, a very big
deceit," and pointed out that "no one
consulted us during these four days in Paris. Now
we got an imposed document. We saw that we have been
betrayed." (29)

The text of the new peace plan
contained several provisions that no sovereign
nation could accept. The plan allots Kosovo a
status transcending either of Yugoslavia's
republics and provides for direct Western
involvement. A Chief of the Implementation
Mission (CIM), appointed by NATO, would be
empowered to "recommend to the appropriate
authorities the removal and appointment of
officials and the curtailment of operations of
existing institutions" and to "issue
binding directives to the parties and subsidiary
bodies on police and civil public security
matters...." Western officials would also
appoint the chief prosecutor, and "when
necessary, direct the operations of the office of
the Prosecutor...." Censorship would be
effectively imposed, as the CIM would be
responsible for "allocation of radio and
television frequencies." The CIM would also
act "as the final authority" and
"his determinations" would be
"binding on all parties and persons."
Yugoslavia, according to the plan, would
"invite" occupation by hostile NATO
troops. A provision stating that "the
economy of Kosovo shall function in accordance
with free market principles" would ensure
Western corporate interests. Additionally, the
plan provides for "the free movement of
persons, goods, services, and capital to Kosovo, including from
international sources." (30)

The plan covers a three-year
transition period, at the end of which "an
international meeting shall be convened to
determine a mechanism for the final settlement
for Kosovo." The fate of Kosovo would be
decided by "the will of the people,"
presumably only those residing within Kosovo and
not the rest of the nation, and by "opinions
of relevant authorities," unquestionably a
reference to NATO. State Department spokesman
James Rubin was clear about what is intended to
follow the interregnum covered by the plan.
"Some Kosovar Albanian leaders are starting
to understand that an interim arrangement doesn't
mean that the Kosovar Albanians need to forgo
permanently their aspirations, but rather it is an interim
solution...." (31)
According to an analyst from Pax Christi,
American mediators told the secessionist
delegation at Rambouillet that they need only
"symbolically disarm," and they
"would be allowed to keep large parts of
their weaponry, provided
they concealed them." (32)
One high-ranking official from the Clinton
administration indicated that "some
members" of the KLA "are going to have
to morph into a new role" as the Kosovo
police force, and another was quick to assure the
KLA "they
can still exist" as part of the police
force. (33)

As revealed by a German intelligence
official, "The [German] Chancellor and
Foreign Minister knew from the outset that no
Yugoslav government could ever sign" the
Rambouillet plan. "Both understood clearly
that this would mean the end of Yugoslavia as a
sovereign state. War was therefore
inevitable." The last-minute additions to
the plan were so extreme that "experts of
the [German] Justice Ministry poked fun at these passages." (34)

Disinformation

Western propaganda has succeeded in
winning over a majority of public opinion in
support of a blatant violation of the U.N.
Charter and international law. The emotional
pretext for NATO's war of aggression was an
alleged massacre in the village of Racak. Yet,
Western European observers and an Associated
Press film crew covering the police action did
not witness a massacre. The bodies of the victims
did not appear until the next day, several hours
after the departure of Yugoslav police. Forensic
tests showed traces of gunpowder on 37 of the 40
bodies, indicating that the individuals had been
engaged in combat.
(35)

Pentagon press conferences often focus
on the suffering of refugees, resorting to highly
emotive and overwrought terms like
"genocide" and "great
terror." No doubt abuses have taken place,
and on both sides, but there is a pattern of
deliberate exaggeration and fabrication, in order
to build public support for the death and
destruction that NATO is inflicting. The
execution of secessionist leaders was widely
reported, including "eyewitness
accounts," but these same leaders achieved a
remarkable resurrection when they were found very much alive
several days later. (36)
Another Kosovar Albanian leader, Ibrahim Rugova,
was said to be either killed or in hiding, and
his home demolished. Inconveniently,
he was found very much alive in his intact home. (37)
Another story charged Yugoslav police with
rounding up 100,000 Albanians in a Pristina
stadium, in preparation
for a massacre. A French reporter went to the
stadium and found it "completely
empty." (38)

A reporter from The Times visiting
Macedonia heard two refugees relate stories of
their village being burned and civilians driven
away. Noticing their spotless white running
shoes, a Red Cross worker commented, "These
men don't look as though they have walked 20
miles. They look as though they arrived by
Mercedes." According to the reporter,
"There were so many discrepancies" in
the stories of refugees from the village of
Kotlina, "it was impossible to know the
truth." The same reporter noted that there
was speculation that villagers from Kotlina had
fled from the KLA, and there have been reports of
"forcible conscription" by the KLA,
including attacks on those refusing to join. The
KLA issued an order for all Kosovar Albanian men
between 18 and 50 to join its forces. In addition
to accepting volunteers, a KLA officer says,
"we will also use force to recruit"
men, and a KLA statement announced that "if
the men refuse to join the KLA...the military
police will act even outside Kosovo."
According to Reuters, "Some refugees
reaching the relative sanctuary of Albania said
they were willing to pay local taxi drivers hefty
sums to help them escape KLA press gangs."

There are many reasons people flee
their homes, some due to abuses, and some due to
the all-out warfare that has erupted between the
KLA and Yugoslav forces. But NATO itself is also
responsible for generating the refugee crisis.
When asked if Serbian police had driven her from
her home, one woman told The Times reporter,
"There were no Serbs. We were frightened of
the bombs." Red Cross officials told the
reporter that "many of the most recent arrivals
intend to return to Kosovo as soon as the NATO
bombardment stops." (39)

A statement released anonymously by a
high-ranking German official, declaring he
"can no longer remain silent," accused
"both the entire NATO propaganda
staff," as well as German leaders, of
"unabashedly lying to the public with nearly
every 'fact' they present about the Balkan war,
while a willing media pack is keenly spreading
these lies, unverified, as gospel truth."
Furthermore, the German government "is
cynically playing with the calculated misery of
the refugees." NATO, he added, does not have
at its "disposal photographic, intelligence
knowledge, indications and proof leading to the
conclusion that there is systematic expulsion or
deportation of refugees by Yugoslav special
forces, army or police." The German defense
ministry, he claims, has determined that the
following factors are equally responsible for
refugee flight:

Excess on the part of Yugoslav
soldiers and police forces, often
triggered in part by KLA attacks carried
out under cover of Kosovar Albanian
civilians. Information is on hand that
Yugoslav soldiers caught looting are
summarily court martialled.

The results of the NATO bombing,
such as the lack of potable water in
nearly all cities of Kosovo, and general
devastation.

Understandable fear of getting
caught in the crossfire between the KLA,
the Yugoslav military, and NATO attacks.

Constant spreading of panic and
horror stories in the broadcasts of
dozens of small KLA, NATO or Albanian
shortwave radio stations located in the
mountains alongside the propaganda
broadcasts of the KLA over Radio Tirana.

Pillaging bands of the Albanian
mafia, who...extort money, search
abandoned houses for anything of value
and then burn the houses down to create a
political effect.

KLA irregular troops, who have
declared a 'general mobilization' and are
forcing every available man into their
military service. Those objecting are
submitted to grave physical abuse and
released only upon paying a ransom, and
having sworn under threat of vendetta,
not to tell the truth but to tell family
and the media that they had been
mishandled by Serbs.

The
announcement by the KLA that NATO will
inevitably have to carry out a ground
attack and that this attack is imminent. (40)

Transforming
Low Intensity Conflict into Full Scale War

NATO's bombardment has spared nothing.
Not only military targets, but factories, public
buildings, residential areas, schools,
pharmaceutical plants, chemical plants, oil
refineries, bridges, and roads have been
destroyed. The city of Novi Sad was without a
supply of water for two weeks. NATO is
deliberately destroying Yugoslavia as an
industrial economy. Each day sees more factories
obliterated and more workers faced with a loss of
income. Several hundred civilians have been
killed, and countless more wounded. This ruthless
unprovoked savagery has only brought more
suffering to the people of the Balkans.

NATO and the KLA are closely
coordinating operations during the bombing
campaign. A French reporter was told by a KLA
soldier, "The KLA gives information on
targets to NATO. Tuesday I transmitted
information on a bridge and a road used by Serbs.
The bridge
was bombed and destroyed Wednesday morning."
(41)
An Italian journalist visiting a KLA camp was
surprised to see walk in an officer "from
NATO special forces. He does not seem surprised
to see me, nor worried. He sat down next to [KLA
soldiers] and
began looking at a number of military maps."
(42)
According to the anonymous German official,
"NATO and the German army are logistically
supporting the KLA. Food, uniforms and
instructors are furnished mainly by the
Bundeswehr as well as by the USA. All KLA commanders are
in constant radio contact with NATO. (43)

NATO has also completed "detailed
plans" for a ground invasion that is
scheduled to take place no sooner than the end of
May. The plan calls for 80,000 troops to invade
the Kosovo region, and for an additional 200,000
troops in Bosnia, Hungary and Romania "to
all but throttle Serbia and to cage
Milosevic." A Romanian diplomat revealed
that U.S. officials had discussed the deployment
of NATO troops in Romania. According to a NATO officer, speaking
on condition of anonymity, "There would be
no point in just taking Kosovo. You'd have to
take the whole country down." (44)
Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov claims to
have obtained "reliable information"
that the invasion would ensure
the secession or splitting off of Kosovo. (45)

"Since the first term of the
Clinton Administration," the German
official's statement states, the CIA, DIA and
German BND have undertaken a covert action aimed
at "the destruction of Yugoslavia...the last
bastion of resistance in the Balkans." The
objective of the plan "is the dissociation
of Kosovo as the principal source of raw
materials for Yugoslavia through a comprehensive
autonomy, by Albanian annexation or total
independence; the secession of Montenegro, its
only remaining access to the Adriatic and the
dislocation of Vojvodina, the 'bread basket' and
another source of raw materials for Yugoslavia, leading to
the total collapse of Yugoslavia as a viable
industrial state." (46)

The West, U.S. Ambassador to Macedonia
Christopher Hill asserts, will be "heavily
involved" in Kosovo for decades. (47)
Madeleine Albright has declared that "NATO
will be in charge of the real estate in Kosovo,
just as they are in Bosnia." (48)

A precedent is being set. NATO's
abrogation of international law and the United
Nations Charter will have profound ramifications
far beyond the Balkans in the years ahead.

7. M. Laketic,
"The Testimony of Bekim Mazreku on the
Albanian Terrorists' Crimes Against the Kidnapped
Serbs in the Village of Klecka," Politika
(Belgrade), Aug. 31, 1998; "Mass Grave Found
in Former Kosovo Rebel Stronghold," AFP,
Aug. 29, 1998; "Serbs Show Mass Grave Found
in Kosovo," AFP, Aug. 29, 1998. [back to text]

17. "Unreported
US Military Flights to Kosovo Could Pose Threat
to Civil Aviation," Gazeta Shqiptare
(Tirana), July 2, 1998; "Officials Warn
Against Unscheduled U.S. Military Flights,"
ATA (Tirana), July 2, 1998.[back to text]